TikTok Staff Warned About Child Safety Risks, Depositions Say
Previously unreported depositions obtained by NPR show TikTok staff warned executives about child safety risks, including minors in transactional sexual content and algorithm-driven harms.
The depositions are connected to a multi-district litigation initiated in 2022 that brings together hundreds of lawsuits alleging that TikTok, Meta, Snap and Google knew their social media platforms are harmful to children and failed to disclose those risks.
In one deposition, Reagen Maher, who held senior safety and investigations positions between 2021 and 2024, described flagging the prevalence of “transactional sexual content” to then-TikTok CEO V Pappas. The concern involved minors stripping on TikTok’s Live feature in exchange for “gifts” that can be converted into real currency.
Maher said the company was already aware of the sexual exploitation concerns before Forbes reported on the issue in 2022. In an excerpt from an internal chat with a colleague, Maher wrote: “I have been fighting about fixing this for months with people who didn’t think the harms are severe enough.” Maher added: “Put simply, senior leaders know about this issue. There are some ongoing projects to fix parts of it, and frankly, I’m hoping [that] this article puts a fire behind other potential solutions.”
Another deposition from Eric Han, TikTok’s former head of safety, said he was concerned in 2020 about harmful algorithm “rabbit holes.” Han described them in an internal TikTok report as having a “real contagion effect” regarding “suicidal ideation and behavior.”
Han also said that despite flagging “minor safety is an urgent issue that we must address effectively,” TikTok failed to warn parents of the potential dangers of their child using the platform.
NPR reported that employees were frustrated over TikTok executives failing to appropriately act on concerns they raised, including minors bypassing age-restricted content and appearing in transactional sexual content that the company could financially benefit from. The depositions add employee accounts to the litigation’s claims about what platform companies knew and disclosed about risks to younger users.
Editor's Summary
Previously unreported depositions obtained by NPR show TikTok staff warned executives about child safety risks, including minors in transactional sexual content and algorithm-driven harms. The records are part of a 2022 multi-district litigation against TikTok, Meta, Snap and Google over alleged failures to disclose platform risks to children. The filings add employee accounts to claims that senior leaders were aware of the issues but did not act.